2012 New England Patriots: Is Robert Kraft Shortchanging His Team?

It’s time to ask the question, New England: Is Robert Kraft doing enough to bring in the type of front-line talent that his team needs and his fanbase deserves? Or is he putting his profit model ahead of football excellence and shortchanging his team in the process?

Admittedly, by all accounts, Kraft is a wonderful guy. That’s what I hear anyway. And he certainly has become something of a sacred cow. Patriots fans were not shy about pointing the finger at Tom Brady after Super Bowl XLVI. Wes Welker took his share of the heat. Giselle, Belichick, they’ve all felt the wrath.   

But there’s one guy who floats above the fray. The guy at the top. Kraft. 

Even in his excellent article outlining the need for the Patriots to go “all in” in coming seasons, Boston Globe columnist Christopher L. Gasper neglected to call out Kraft by name, opting instead to politely question whether it might be time for the Pats to temporarily suspend their “long-term view” and spend some money on big-time players.

One can only speculate, of course, about the choices that the Patriots front office makes and why they repeatedly opt not to go after blue-chip talent. But here’s one theory: Belichick is arrogant. He refuses to accept that he needs at least a few great athletes, believing instead that he can take mediocre players and coach ‘em up.

And here’s another theory: this suits Kraft just fine, because the winning tradition, the stellar Patriot brand, is already as good as it gets. Kraft has Belichick. He has Brady. He has a rabid fan base that devours tickets and merchandise as fast he can produce them.

He has, according to Forbes magazine, the second highest gate receipts in the NFL and the third most profitable franchise overall.

And, here’s the real kicker: his payroll costs are near the bottom of the league. I’m no mathematician, but that sounds like a winning proposition—in terms of profit margin, I mean. By all indications, Kraft is maxing out the profitability of his franchise. So where’s the incentive to spend more money on better players when you can skate along on an established brand name and the “strength and spirit” of your existing team?

In the parlance of Forbes, the Patriots are the most “cost-effective” team in the NFL. This is to say that they manage to squeeze the most wins out of a relatively frugal payroll. Aside from Brady and a few other rare exceptions over the years, this is a team that prefers to take the lesser player for less money over the better player for more.

It has to make you wonder…how good would the Patriots be if they actually spent money?

This is not to say that we shouldn’t recognize and respect Belichick’s neverending pursuit of contract value and his skill at navigating the modern salary structure. There’s a lot to be said for his economic approach, if not for his player evaluation skills as of late.  

Still, the fact remains that this team is well under the salary cap. In his NFL cap projections for 2012, Omar Kelly of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel lists the Patriots among a select group of teams that “have the cap space to make big moves in free agency.” Which begs the question, for all of the team’s shrewd money management, what’s the point of having all this extra cap space if you don’t spend it at some point?

Memo to Kraft: Now would be a good time.

Actually, any time over the last season or two would have been better. Julius Peppers was out there. Pass. Jonathan Joseph seemed like a decent value. Pass. Brandon Lloyd? The Rams picked him up for a sixth-round draft pick.

No interest? Really?

Okay. What’s done is done. But, as we head into 2012, the eyes of Patriots fans should be firmly fixed on Kraft and the front office. There is simply no excuse not to make the “big move” of which they are clearly capable.

Indeed, as Gaspar reminds us in his Globe column, Brady’s time is limited. He needs good players around him—better players than he has now—if he’s going to get that fourth ring.

Of course, Brady would be the last one to say it himself. After the Super Bowl loss, it was Kraft who consoled his quarterback as Brady sat in his locker, uniform still on, towel over his head, staring down at the floor.

No doubt, in this moment Brady was thinking about the missed opportunities, wondering if he could have done more, maybe even re-dedicating himself to doing whatever it takes to get this team back to the Big Game.  

We can only hope that Robert Kraft has done the same.